Humbled and blessed (and a matching grant!)

It's not often that I'm speechless.   

Those of you who know me in real life know that I fully earned my childhood nickname of "Motor Mouth."  I like to talk.  Too much, most of the time.   

But tonight I was speechless.  

Totally and completely unable to find the right words.  Unable to find the way to express my intense gratitude for the generosity that was being offered to us, the love and compassion being given to us, and through us to our Peter.

Tonight we were offered a matching grant for the REST OF OUR FUNDING.

Yes, that's right, folks.   We were offered a dollar-for-dollar matching grant until we hit that glorious "fully funded" mark of $16,500.  

God is good.  All of the time.

Let me tell you about these generous donors.   They'll probably hate me for embarrassing them here on the blog, but their story is one of beauty, courage, and grace, and I can't help but share it with you.

photo source

When we moved to Arizona, we were quickly welcomed and supported by this family.  Johnny and Alison truly welcomed us with open arms, to use a cliche.   You may remember them from previous mentions on this blog - they had an adorable on-going fundraiser for an adoption of "Baby Girl" (who was later named Seraphia Caritas once born).   Alison worked hour after hour to create beautiful "bird's nest" necklaces to fund their adoption.

At the very last minute, however, the adoption of Seraphia fell through.   You can read Alison's beautiful, grace-filled reflection of that experience here.   While heartbroken, the faith and courage that Johnny and Alison witnessed to those around them was unbelievable.   Loving Seraphia was always their first duty, and their only goal was to be faithful to God's will.   We never may understand exactly why their situation played out like it did, but what we do know is that Johnny and Alison never lost their trust in God's plan and their faithfulness to His call in their lives.

They are continuing to try to live faithfully to God's call, and He has placed it on their hearts to take the funds raised for their own adoption to help support others' adoption journeys.   While many of us would be tempted to hold on to those funds in anticipation of a future adoption of our own, Johnny and Alison are stepping out in faith that God will provide when they do move forward themselves, and are blessing other families with their funds.

We are humbled and incredibly grateful to be blessed by their generosity.

With their support, we are now officially able to say that every single donation from now until we are fully funded will be doubled automatically.

One $10 puzzle piece automatically becomes 2 (and you still can enter into the lobster giveaway and Macbook giveaway!!)

We could be fully funded - and Peter's puzzle complete! - in half the amount of time, thanks to Johnny and Alison!

So, can you help us?  Can you help us make every dollar and donation double in value?

Share this link - let everyone know about our matching funds.  Facebook, twitter, people you know in real life, email, blogs.   Let's see how many different people we can find who want to see $1 become $2, and watch Peter's puzzle grow and grow.  

We all like to get more for our money, right?   Now we can, thanks to an amazingly generous gift.

Let's get started!   And while you're spreading the word, make sure to share Seraphia's story.   It's a witness to God's grace that you do not want to miss.